Only three years after the first acquisition Yello Mobile has raised $78M, is nurturing an alliance of 35 startups, is profitable to the tune of $1.5M per month and plans to IPO next year. This is surely one of the most exciting startup stories in Asia this year. Here is part one of a two part article about their founding story, growth, and ambitious plans for the future. Part 2 coming tomorrow….

During my time working with Korean startups there has been an almost universal fear of the dangers of entry to the Chinese market. But as Korean founders become more globally minded, and more confident in themselves, fear is being replaced with confidence and success stories are beginning to emerge. In addition, Chinese-Korean relations have never been better, and I expect that in the years to come great opportunities for cross-border opportunity will…

“We look forward to another success story with startups here in Daejon,” said President Park Geun-hye during a ceremony to launch yet another innovation center in Korea. While government support for Korean startups has been impressive, is it time for the politicians to take a step back? At some point the ecosystem must be allowed to develop of its own volition and startups surviving off the back of government handouts alone must…

Sources in the Goverment have confirmed that a total of around $1 billion was invested in startups in the first nine months of the year. This represents a 9.5% increase from a year earlier. The number of startups that received investment also increased to 619 from 579 over the same period. The increase in funding has been attributed to a rise in activity by institutional investors and private venture funds, as well as government investment…

It has been widely reported that Apple’s market penetration has been waining in Korea, in the face of extreme local competition from Samsung and LG. However, a mobile open market research report from Goodmobile has shown that Apple is perhaps back in favor with Korean consumers. After the release of the iPhone in Korea Apple enjoyed a sustained period of popularity, but in the last couple of years the US manufacturers favor…

  Samsung Ties Up With SK To Develop 5G   South Korea’s top mobile carrier, SK Telecom, said they are partnering with Samsung to develop the 5G industry, seeking early advancement in one of the highly watched mobile sectors. “We signed an MOU to conduct joint research in network technologies and new services related to the 5G,” SK Telecom said. The company currently dominates half of the local mobile market. World First LTE Tech…

On October 16, SoftBank Ventures Korea held their second annual forum which presents their portfolio companies and vision to invited guests and the press. Our friends at Buzzvil, also a portfolio company of Softbank, were there to record the action. SoftBank Ventures Korea, a subsidiary of Softbank Corp. in Japan, is one of the most established early stage investment companies in Korea and their annual Forum showcased their portfolio companies for press and…

As reported by TechCrunch, natural language platform wit.ai has announced a $3M seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz in a deal that has emerged shortly after the team graduated from Y Combinator. The company is tackling a need for smart speech recognition and natural language processing services, which are becomming a thriving industry thanks in part to the boom in IoT technologies. Wit.ai offers developers an API for building natural language interfaces. For startups that currently…

Tribeluga is a Seoul-Beijing based startup accelerator with the core mission of connecting Startups to new (and traditionally tough) markets, primarily China and the US. Today the company’s President, Lili Luo, launched the accelerator in a glitzy opening event in Seoul that attracted media from across the globe. Dignitaries from the US, Korea and China, including the Mayor of Palo Alto also attended. The event was arranged to officially open the accelerator,…

SoftBank has just announced that they will acquire Korean TV streaming service, DramaFever, for an undisclosed amount. DramaFever is a five-year-old Korean startup that streams global TV shows and movies online. The company was founded by brothers Hyun and Suk Park which also raised series A funding from SoftBank in 2013. DramaFever has raised a total of over $12 million altogether, since founding. This is the second major acquisition of a Korean online TV distribution…

Correction: The ‘won figure’ for the investment originally quoted was wrong and should be 18 Billion won (not 180 billion won. The fugure of around $18 million is correct. Bain Capital has today announced that they have led a series A investment into Korean car sharing company, Socar. The total investment raised in this series A round is 18 billion won (equivilent to around $18M). Insiders point to a dramatic rise in…

Kakao Talk Promises that encrypted messeging will be available this year Daum Kakao, the operator of South Korea’s most popular mobile messenger Kakao Talk, said it plans to adopt a “privacy mode” in an apparent bid to allay users’ concerns about security. There has been much in the Korean press on this matter recently and Telegram has been making the most of the situation, garning massive local suport in Korea. “The new…

Until a couple of weeks ago Koreans had never heard of Telegram, the super-secure Berlin-based messaging app that is now causing waves. Telegram is attracting droves of Korean users away, for increased security. In Korea, KakaoTalk is installed on 95% of smartphones, and Kakao messages surpassed SMS messages a few years back. Kakao is known for its ease of use and expressive emoticons. But now Kakao, which has established a near-monopoly in Korea, is facing a serious…

Edited from Business Korea: Korea is once again proving to be a market where rapid adoption of new tech services (particularly mobile) can occur at phenomenal speed. Samsung’s Milk Music, Kakao Corp’s peer to peer payments service, and Berlin-based Telegram messenger are the most recent examples. These services have attracted hundreds of thousands or even millions of subscribers in the first few weeks after release in Korea, the world’s ‘most wired nation’….

Sparklabs fourth batch recently kicked off and I had the chance to speak with one of their most promising startups, OnnuriDMC. OnnuriDMC operates a mobile advertising platform, CrossTarget, that the founders believe has solved a major issue for mobile advertisers; being able to track users in the mobile app environment in real time. Background In the PC environment advertisers are able to easily track user behavior through cookies, but this is generally…

K Cube Ventures, an early stage investment firm in Seoul, announced today that they have invested about $200K in Bitcoin startup ‘Devign Lab’. Devign Lab has developed a bitcoin market called Coinone. Devign Lab claims to be the first web based home trading system (HTS) in South Korea and aims to provide up to date bidding/contract information for users. Their one click payment system ‘Coinpay’ provides payment services with a 0% transaction fee. Their mobile application is currently in…

1. Korea comes in 2nd place for the fastest internet speeds, 1st in other metrics According to a recent report by Akamai Technologies, South Korea’ average peak connection speed was 72.1 Mbps, lagging behind Hong Kong with 73.9 Mbps. Despite this result Korea remains top in the world for a number of other internet speed metrics including, highest average connection speed (24.6 Mbps). Hong Kong is the runner-up in this metric, at 8.9…

One does not normally associate tech M&As with political strife. But the left leaning Daum and right leaning Kakao are facing exactly these issues on the day they announce their successful merger. Daum is Korea’s second largest internet portal that was acquired earlier this summer by Korea’s largest social messeging applilcation, Kakao. Daum is generally acknowledged to be skewed to the left on the political spectrum, whereas Kakao was previously caught up in controversy…

As reported in Business Korea, Chinese handset maker Huawei is launching a mobile handset offensive against domestic powerhouses Samsung and LG, in the Korean market. The company will begin their invasion with a new flagship smartphone, set to compete with the more economical domestic options. Samsung Electronics will also make a stronger effort in the Chinese market to increase its market share, particularly in premium level handsets. Huawei is planning to target…

For as much as the last fifteen years Korea has been emerging as one of the front-runners in global tech innovation, but has failed time and time again to capitalize fully on the opportunities. Smartphones, 4G mobile internet, MP3 players, social networks, and mobile payments are just a few examples. Nowadays, the U.S. and China, not Korea, are spearheading the growth of these markets and Korea is at a dangerous position, likely…